Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know

If we want to get inside of a dog’s mind, to know how it feels to be that dog, then we must first understand how he sees his subjective universe, or “umvelt.” This is the premise of Alexandra Horowitz’s nearly flawless book, Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know.

Groucho Marx once quipped,“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” Horowitz turns on the light, climbs inside and shows us what goes on inside of a dog. She teases apart our anthropomorphic notion that dogs are like us. Then, basing her narrative on an exhaustive list of canine studies (she cites 185 references), she reconstructs the dog, piece by piece. For example, she writes, “To understand the dog umwelt, then, we must think of objects, people, emotions— even times of day—as having distinctive odors.” Horowitz adds that because dogs “see” smells, they must remember in smells as well. “When we imagine dogs’ dreaming and daydreaming, we should envisage dream images made of scents.” They are not chasing bunnies; they are chasing bunny odor.

Writing about science in a vernacular to which non-scientists can relate is tricky. Too erudite and you lose your regular folks. Too folksy and the science loses its application. Horowitz takes the middle road. Using her “dog-person” voice, she focuses on what the research means rather than the technical intricacies of its methodology. References are in the back of the book according to chapter and include empirical research, observational studies, books and personal conversations.

A psychologist with a PhD in cognitive science,Horowitz touches on smell, vocalization, vision, play, sense of self, cognition and the interaction between dogs and people. She’s organized the book based on a dog’s point of view. For instance, the chapter about olfaction is titled “Sniff” and includes sections such as You showed fear and Leaves and grass.

Horowitz enhances her already detailed description of canine knowing with poetic accounts of the relationship she has with her own dog, Pumpernickel. In the chapter about olfaction, she writes, “Since I’ve begun to appreciate Pump’s smelly world, I sometimes take her out just to sit and sniff.We have smell-walks, stopping at every landmark along our route in which she shows an interest.”

If you’re just looking for answers to some timeless canine questions, you’ll find them here, too.Why is a dog’s nose wet? To catch odor molecules.Why does a dog scratch the ground after he defecates? To spread the odor.Do dogs know what size they are? Yes. Do dogs laugh? Maybe. Do dogs “pack”with their human family? Not really—as she writes, “We and our dogs come closer to being a benign gang than a pack.”

If you think you know your dog, think again. Horowitz peels away the layers of pre-conceived notions and gets to the core of canine-ness to reveal that Canis familiaris is anything but familiar.

Jane Brackman, PhD, is an authority on the cultural history of canine domestication and the author of two books on pets in 19th-century America. See her new pup, Barkley, and watch him grow on her blog.